Goy meets girl: How interfaith couples make it work

Before Juliann Richards met Neal Levy, she didn’t doubt that she’d marry a fellow Catholic someday. After all, Richards was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school, grew up mostly around fellow Catholics, and knew she wanted her children raised with the same faith.

“For many years, I told myself (and others) that I was going to the nearby Catholic college so I could meet a nice Catholic boy and get married,” Richards recalls.

Preparing for an interfaith marriage

As a Presbyterian working for the Catholic Church, Bonnie Mack approaches her ministry from a unique perspective. She has been married to a Catholic for 42 years, and for the last 20 she’s volunteered and worked with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Marriage and Family Life Office.

Preparing for an interfaith marriage

As a Presbyterian working for the Catholic Church, Bonnie Mack approaches her ministry from a unique perspective. She has been married to a Catholic for 42 years, and for the last 20 she’s volunteered and worked with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Marriage and Family Life Office.

Admission deferred: Modern barriers to vocations

Feeling called to religious life, many men and women are finding they first need to overcome a few obstacles in their path.

Finally, after years of shoving it down into the recesses of her subconscious, after hiding from it in college, Katie Press was ready to join a religious congregation. She’d earned a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and a Master of Divinity, and had already begun teaching at a school run by the Sisters of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She knew that these sisters would be her community for the rest of her life.

Hispanics in the pews, not on the altar

Over the last several years, priestly ordination classes have gotten younger and more diverse, according to a 2011 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate out of Georgetown University.

There are more Asian and black vocations. Asians are actually overrepresented, making up 4 percent of the U.S. Catholic population and 10 percent of the ordination class.

Old habits die hard: The clothes of yore interest young religious

Around the time Karen Lueck entered the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in 1967, the community had decided to forgo its traditional habit. “Many people who had worn the habit were glad to get out of it,” she says. “They felt it kept them on a pedestal, apart from the people.”

The order reconsidered the issue several times during the 1970s and eventually reached a compromise: A few sisters chose to wear a modified habit, and the vast majority—including Lueck—opted for simple, professional clothing. (All sisters wear the order’s medal and ring.)

Old habits die hard: The clothes of yore interest young religious

Around the time Karen Lueck entered the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in 1967, the community had decided to forgo its traditional habit. “Many people who had worn the habit were glad to get out of it,” she says. “They felt it kept them on a pedestal, apart from the people.”

The order reconsidered the issue several times during the 1970s and eventually reached a compromise: A few sisters chose to wear a modified habit, and the vast majority—including Lueck—opted for simple, professional clothing. (All sisters wear the order’s medal and ring.)